Readify empowers Student Edge with new platform to increase value for members
Sydney, Australia – 26, July, 2013 – Today, Microsoft announced that Student Edge, an organisation which aims to improve the lives of every student by providing free access to online services, has deployed its core IT platform on Windows Azure. By moving its platform to Microsoft’s cloud, Student Edge is now able to respond quickly and effectively to an increase in engagement online, while the pace of platform development has also increased significantly as Student Edge is able to quickly scale its infrastructure as and when required.
The organisation has over 500,000 high-school and tertiary student members, almost 700,000 card holders and over 100 national partners. While a successful organisation, Student Edge had a number of IT-related business problems. Student Edge wanted to replace its ageing IT platform, which was struggling to meet the organisation’s needs, in order to grow its network into new geographies and offer current customers a faster and more intuitive service.
Student Edge engaged Microsoft Gold partner, Readify to progressively rebuild and deploy core components of its legacy system, without any disruption to its core services, which required continual access by its members and national partners.
“Windows Azure, together with Readify’s expertise and willingness to understand Student Edge’s objectives – from business outcomes to flexible platforms – combined to move our platform from a risk to a competitive business asset,” said Mike Schwartz, Managing Director, Student Edge.
Previously, the legacy system did not natively support integration with social networks or other types of engagement features such as commenting, rating and sharing. “Working with Student Edge, Readify developed new member-facing features and the end result is a product that empowers the organisation to take their ideas and plans to market quickly and increase the value of their primary asset – their member database,” said Graeme Strange, Managing Director, Readify.
By moving to Windows Azure, Student Edge can also scale its infrastructure to meet future demand and maintain maximum uptime, while reducing costs. “Windows Azure enables us to provide a broad range of services to an even larger range of clients. We can now service new clients’ business needs without the involvement of our IT department and can effectively white label some of these key services for rebranding as our clients’ own,” said Schwartz.
The new platform provides Student Edge with a level of responsiveness that it was unable to attain previously, enabling it to both incorporate new client partnering opportunities quickly and with minimal up-front investment, and provide a more effective service to its members.
“Our members are now able to call up pages sourced from the other side of the world based upon an end-to-end Microsoft-.Net-Azure platform faster and more reliably than they used to from just down the street,” added Schwartz.
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